


The Romantic Type Of Felines

by Franeridan



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 22:58:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6170026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franeridan/pseuds/Franeridan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The guy had been coming around the store for the past few weeks with increasing frequency, and it wasn't like Kuroo minded, of course, shops were for people to walk in and buy stuff, but what could that man's business in a gift store be for him to keep coming back so often?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Romantic Type Of Felines

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write another BoKuro, but I had more or less no ideas, so I picked two or three different prompts and mashed them up and this is what came out of it - it's poinless fluff, mostly, and bad puns too, and that's all there is to know about this fic. Let me know what you think of it!

The guy had been coming around the store for the past few weeks with increasing frequency, and it wasn't like Kuroo _minded_ , of course, shops were for people to walk in and buy stuff, but what could that man's business in a gift store be for him to keep coming back so often?

He didn't even buy _anything_ , he just walked around, stalled before every single shelf for minutes at time – like the content could have changed _that much_ since two days prior – and then left, pensive expression on his face and a wave of his hand towards the employees as he walked out of the door.

Sometimes he came with friends, most times he was alone, and Kuroo just _didn't understand_ and it was honestly starting to bug him more than it should have.

“I'm telling you, something's up,” he said, arms crossed on the counter and chin resting on top of them – Kenma hummed low and disinterested in answer, keeping his eyes on his phone until he'd cleared the current level of whatever game he was playing, and then put it back in his pants' pocket and turned to look at him.

“Maybe he just likes looking at the merch,” he commented, “some people find the colors soothing.”

Kuroo furrowed his brows, watching the guy move around on the other side of the shop as he yet again analyzed every single small stuffed animal and knick-knack present on the shelves before him, and then wriggled his nose in silent disagreement.

What Kenma was saying made sense, he _knew_ it – it still didn't change the fact that Kuroo was sure that it wasn't the reason for the guy's way-too-frequent visits, though.

It was in the way he moved, and the expressions he made, focused and alert just like a man on a mission, like he was there for a specific reason.

What Kuroo didn't understand was why, after _weeks_ of visiting, still nothing had happened. It was kind of frustrating, really.

“Aren't you too invested in that costumer?” Kenma asked after a beat, making him scoff and get up from his bent-over position just to cross his arms at his chest.

“He isn't a costumer, he's never bought anything,” he pointed out, and then ignored his best friend when he let out a soft _you're avoiding the question_.

So maybe he was a bit more interested in the white-and-black haired guy then he was in any other regular, but that didn't mean anything. It was just because he was _weird_ and did _weird things_ and Kuroo wanted to _understand_.

His interest was purely of the scientific kind, it didn't have anything to do with the guy's adorable smile or endless biceps or bright eyes or nice voice, whatever Yaku may have had to say about the topic.

“Why don't you just go ask him if he needs help, then,” Kenma sighed once it was clear the other wasn't going to answer his question, fishing his phone out of his pocket and starting up his game once more, and Kuroo suddenly needed to take a few seconds to let his brain process the words just spoken.

_Oh_.

“Why hadn't I thought about that?” he said in surprise, eyebrows high and shoulders dropped – Kenma mumbled out a distracted _because you're an idiot_ , but Kuroo was already on the other side of the counter and making his way towards the costumer when it reached his ears, so he didn't bother answering him with anything more than a wave of his hand.

Engaging was a good idea: normal, since Kuroo was an employee and the guy someone who _obviously_ needed help, and practical in the way that made it easy to ask _why_ he was there, and exactly what was it that he'd been doing for the past several weeks.

It'd solve the mystery in the blink of an eye.

And maybe Kuroo could find a way to get a name out of it, too, but that was just secondary.

When he reached him, the guy was looking at a small owl key-chain, weighting it in his left hand and contemplating it with a considering hum; he had his nose scrunched up and his eyebrows drown in, and Kuroo found it hard to repress the smile that was trying to pull at his lips.

He was _cute_.

“Found anything you're interested into?” he asked, sinking his hands in his pants' pockets and raising a brow at the small, surprised jump the guy made in answer – a grin took over Kuroo face when he noticed the parted lips and suddenly darker color of the costumer's cheeks and, when everything that came out of him in answer was a long _uhhh,_ he took pity on him and vaguely gestured to the key-chain in his hand.

“We have about two dozens different animals for that series, in case the owl isn't what you're looking for,” he informed, even if, considering how much the guy had been around and for how long he'd examined the shelves, he probably already knew.

It was enough to pull him out of his stupor, though, making him shake his head and move his eyes first back on the key-chain and then up on Kuroo for a couple of times, stopping in the end on the owl with a fixed, intense expression.

“No, I, uhm, I love this one, owls are _great_ ,” he said, raising his eyes – golden, nearly shining irises, Kuroo was noticing with delight – and pointing his gaze on him with a seriousness that seemed to dare him to disagree with him on owls' perfection.

Not that Kuroo particularly cared for the animal, truth be told, but the intensity of the stare was such that for a second he felt like completely agreeing without any doubt, _yes, owls are the most majestic creatures, aren't they?_

It was in the unblinking lids and unwavering eyes, he guessed. It made him feel like, wherever the guy was taking his sureness in the topic, it couldn't be anywhere wrong.

Also, the stare made the guy look like an owl himself, which could have been enough of a reason for Kuroo to consider the animals the most adorable beings on earth, right that moment.

_Damn it, I got it bad_.

“Well,” he said after a missed beat, shrugging his shoulders and forcing his gaze to be as steady as he could, “that one's 350 yen, in case you want to–”

“I can't buy it,” the guy interrupted, sighing a little and letting the key-chain fall back on its shelf, “I mean, I _could_ , but this isn't what I'm here for, I think.”

The grin came back on Kuroo's face full force, satisfied and barely contained, and he shifted on his place and gingerly leaned against the shelves with as much nonchalance as he could muster up.

“You think?” he wondered, prompting the guy to hum and then nod in answer,“and what is it you're here for? I may help, if you want me to.”

The costumer looked at him for a handful of motionless seconds, considering, head tilted and arms crossed; then he shrugged and nodded, a bright grin slowly opening on his lips and making his whole face shine, and Kuroo nearly felt his heart skip a beat at how pretty of a smile it was.

“Alright,” the guy said, thrusting a hand towards him and letting his tongue come out to wet his lips in a fast, barely there movement, “I'm Bokuto, by the way.”

_Bokuto_ , Kuroo repeated to himself, satisfied he didn't even need to prod for the name and pointedly pretending he wasn't doing everything in his power to avoid staring at the other's lips, and then clasped his own fingers around the palm in front of him and introduced himself in return.

“I'm Kuroo, here to help you and all of that.”

“That's a nice name, _Kuroo_ ,” Bokuto mused, smile curling his lips further and hand still around the other's, and Kuroo found himself barely containing the blush at the unexpected words.

“Uh, it's my surname,” he let out without thinking – and then mentally kicked himself once he realized what he'd said: of course it was his surname, what was even the need to specify it? Who even introduced themselves with just the first name? Bokuto only nodded and smiled harder, though, commenting with a clear _it's a nice surname, then_ and turning back towards the numerous key-chains on the shelves.

Kuroo let himself feel the remaining heat of the other's hand on his palm, the fuzzy sensation in his chest at the compliment, the grin pulling at his lips in answer to the bright, wide one for a few seconds longer, and then pushed it all down in the back of his head with a shrug and a smirk.

“So, Bokuto, what is it you're looking for?” he asked, shifting on his feet as he waited out the other through his _uhh_ -ing and _hmm_ -ing, arms crossed and face drawn in in concentration.

“I guess I want to confess to someone,” he settled on in the end, throwing out his arms in resignation and nodding to himself.

Weirdly enough, pretending he couldn't feel his stomach drop and his enthusiasm evaporate came to Kuroo way more easily than hiding his smile had only minutes earlier.

He really didn't feel like helping out the other anymore, though, petty as it might have been – maybe he could find a way to gesture to Kenma in a way that would make him understand he needed an out: he would have to explain _why_ , later, but admitting to his silly crush was possibly better than helping Bokuto stomp all over it.

Maybe.

“I see,” he said distractedly, throwing a glance at the counter just to find Kenma already dealing with another costumer, “is it a friend you know the tastes of?”

Bokuto grumbled for a while to himself, moved a hand through his surprisingly soft hair, wriggled his nose, and then shook his head and let a sigh drop his shoulders.

“It's someone I don't really know, but I like them? Like, _a lot_? And I want to go out on a date with them to know them better and maybe kiss them, too? I wanted something that could say all of it without me needing to actually _say_ it, but I can't find anything,” he explained, picking up a random key-chain and turning it around in his hands for a while, putting it back down and sighing once more.

Could you be jealous of someone you barely knew and envious of someone else you didn't even know the face of? Kuroo was painfully realizing that it was a concrete possibility, at least for him, and wasn't that something he would have happily lived his whole life without needing to know.

At the counter, Kenma was once again alone and completely absorbed in his game – the possibility of an alien invasion striking in that precise second were higher than those of Kenma realizing they were being invaded, right then, and Kuroo let a small sigh leave him and resigned himself to helping Bokuto out.

The world, sometimes, was a cruel and unfair place.

“That's a lot to say with just one present,” he commented, moving past Bokuto and starting to look through the shelves with vague interest, “maybe you should try going for flowers.”

“Would _you_ like flowers?” Bokuto wondered, getting in step next to him and picking up a stuffed whale just to squish it a couple of times and put it back down again.

Kuroo rolled his eyes at him, looking at a shelf of disgustingly-sweet, hearts-covered merchandise and then shaking his head and moving on.

“I don't think so, but this isn't abou–”

“Then no flowers,” Bokuto interjected, so decisive it made Kuroo stop and stare at him with a raised brow for a second – he just kept walking, though, wide grin and relaxed shoulders, turning around towards him just to ask: “what should someone give to _you_ to have you understand all of that?”

Kuroo thought about it for a second – what would it need to be?

It depended on the person, he guessed. If it were someone he'd never considered as a possible romantic interest before, probably nothing could make him understand _exactly_ what they wanted without a proper explanation; were it _Bokuto_ the one giving him things, on the other hand...

“Why don't you try with a card?” he shrugged, pushing away the images of the man in front of him giving him any type of present and the inevitable fuzzy feelings coming from whatever variation of the fantasy he could come up with.

Bokuto scrunched up his nose, making obvious just how little he liked the suggestion simply by the furrow of his brows – Kuroo found the endless variety of expressions that man could make more endearing by the second, which was starting to make it incredibly hard, remembering he was there to help him pick up a confession-present for someone else.

“That sounds too impersonal,” Bokuto sighed in the end, “cards are for business things, right? Like, you don't want to give someone a present but you _have_ to so you buy a card, I don't like cards.”

Last time Kuroo had bought a card, it had been to send Christmas wishes to a distant cousin – he could barely remember her face, had been years since they'd last seen each other, but his mother had asked him to find something for her and he'd ended up with a pretty card, so maybe Bokuto wasn't completely wrong about that, but still...

“What would _you_ need to get to understand all of that, then?” he asked, throwing his arms out in a gesture encompassing the whole of the shop – Bokuto looked at him for a couple of seconds with wide eyes and tilted head, and then hummed to himself and made his way towards a shelf full of stuffed animals with steady step and a set shoulders.

When he turned back around, he was holding a forty-centimeters-tall, pink-and-white owl with a red heart embroidered on its stomach.

“No,” Kuroo said, covering the distance between them in two long strides and putting the plushie back on its shelf, and Bokuto sighed and shook his head in answer, as if he'd been expecting that exact reaction from him.

“That's what my best friend said too, but owls are great, and there's a _heart_ – it makes total sense!” he complained, looking longingly at the stuffed animal and sighing once again, brows furrowed and front teeth sinking in his lower lip, by all purposes looking as if he were only seconds away from reaching out and buying the owl anyway, after all.

That wasn't going to happen, Kuroo thought as he steered the way back towards the cards section of the store: whoever the person Bokuto wanted to confess to was, and for however much Kuroo didn't like them simply on a principle, they still didn't deserve _that_.

“How about you buy them a card to tell them what you want _and_ a proper gift to show you actually care?” he wondered, picking up a white card with the writing _I love you more than pizza (or maybe as a close second)_ on it and then putting it back down with a small grin.

Bokuto wondered next to him with a low _hmm_ , moving his eyes over the stand with vague interest and then settling on a light blue one, turning towards Kuroo with a wide smile and shining eyes.

“Something like this?” he asked, holding up a card with a small otter drawn in a corner and the writing _I like you more than any otter_ in gold and white right in the middle of it, loopy font and all.

The snort that left Kuroo was probably undignified, but Bokuto didn't seem to notice as he reached over towards the stand for a white card with a whale and the message _whale you be mine?_ on it.

“How about this one?” he said, making an actual laugh come out of Kuroo as he held it up with a satisfied smirk, and then emitted a soft _ohhh!_ , putting that one down to pick up a beige one with an owl in the middle and the writing _my heart is owl yours_ along its side,“I'm picking this one.”

“What's up with you and owls?” Kuroo asked, shaking his head as a soft snicker still tinted his voice, and Bokuto shrugged a noncommittal sound, keeping up his search with a distracted smile still on his lips.

“They're just cool – _oh_ , this one's nice too!” he exclaimed, picking up a red card and passing it to Kuroo without turning around to look at him.

On the paper, the black silhouette of a cat occupied the left side from top to bottom and, following the line of its back, the writing _I have felines for you_ was printed mostly in block letters, aside from the word _felines_ that looped in soft swirls and thin lines – Kuroo looked at it with eyebrows high for a long second, taking in the drawing and the stupid pun, and then let a low _hm_ leave his closed mouth.

“Not gonna lie, if someone gave this to me I'd say yes,” he decided, turning the card in his hand a couple of times and then passing it to a surprised-looking Bokuto, wide eyes and semi-parted lips.

“Really?” he asked, looking at the card again with a raised brow and then up at the other with a delighted smile, “you like cats?”

“And puns, I like both,” Kuroo grinned in answer, feeling his chest grow fuzzy at the other's expression directed at him, and then snorted out a laugh when Bokuto declared he'd pick that one, then.

“I'll have to add something on the inside, though, since _feelings_ is too vague,” he mused, turning back towards the toys' shelves without giving Kuroo the time to tell him that it probably wouldn't work on anyone else, that it would be better to pick a more normal card for someone he didn't even actually know.

He tried to open his mouth and call after him to have him come back, but in three long steps Bokuto was once again in front of the key-chains, moving to pick a small, stuffed one with the shape of a very fat black cat holding up a heart – he looked at it, then at the card, then at the key-chain and the card together, and nodded satisfied to himself with a happy grin and shining eyes.

“Yes, this will work,” he said to himself, turning to Kuroo just as he settled by his side, slouched over position and hands once more in his pockets, to ask him what he thought about it.

He looked so happy about his decisions, Kuroo nearly felt his throat close up from the sudden, intense envy he was feeling.

The world could _really_ be an unfair place, at times.

“It's your confession,” he shrugged, forcibly casual over the last word with a tight smile bending his lips; he started making his way towards the counter with Bokuto just behind him, then, shrugging again when the other insistently asked if it would work on _him_.

“Sure, I told you I love cats,” he said, ringing up the two items with practiced ease and pretending he couldn't see Kenma's interested raised brow – and maybe it was also true that even the heart-owl would have worked for him as long as it came from Bokuto's hands, mostly so if accompanied by his one-thousand-watt smile, but no one needed to know that.

Not right then, not ever.

And mostly not Bokuto and Kenma.

He asked the other if he wanted his key-chain wrapped, put it inside a small paper bag when Bokuto shook his head no, and watched him with a raised brow as he patted his pockets and then looked all around himself with furrowed brows and a frown on his mouth.

“You have a pen?” he asked in the end, accepting the one Kenma handed him and bending over the counter to start scribbling into the card he had just bought, one arm around it to cover what he was writing and tongue slightly peaking from between his lips.

Kuroo watched him with interested confusion written all over his face, turning towards Kenma with a raised eyebrow just to see him shrug and get back to his game, and then nearly startled when the card and paper bag he'd just handed over were thrust back at him with an enthusiastic smile – he looked at them, unsure of what to do, moving his eyes from the items on Bokuto and back again, until the other rolled his eyes and shook the hand he was holding his purchases in with a nearly impatient movement.

“They're for you,” he explained, grin still on his face and eyes wide and bright; Kuroo could feel Kenma's stare on him without even needing to turn around and, for a short, hysterical moment all he could think was _he wouldn't get up for an alien invasion, but he's ignoring his game for this_.

Of course he was.

Bokuto was still looking at him, though, possibly, probably, waiting for an answer to what had to be a... confession? And all Kuroo found himself able to do was open and close his mouth for a couple of times and then let out a soft _what?_

Was that a joke? Some kind of prank? Had Bokuto realized he was crushing on him and was now making fun of him? Maybe it was some kind of dare with his friends, Kuroo was pretty sure it had happened to one of his colleagues, once.

It could be.

“You said you'd say yes,” Bokuto reminded him after a second, pulling him out of his temporary shock and starting to shake both card and bag up and down until Kuroo got a hold of them; he looked at the gifts in his hands, still unsure of what to do or how to answer, and when Bokuto prodded him with a slightly unsure _you_ are _saying yes, right?_ he found the word _yeah_ falling from his lips without even realizing he was talking.

“Sweet!” Bokuto exclaimed, reaching over to take a hold of Kuroo's arm and starting scribbling numbers on his bare skin, “that's my phone, so that if I'm late you can call – are you free tonight? What time do you get off work? I'll come pick you up, is seven alright?” he questioned, waiting only for a confused _sure_ in answer before grinning wide and bright and spinning around to make his way out of the store.

“See you later, then!” he waved as he left, skip to his steps and enthusiasm in his voice, leaving Kuroo to look at the place where he disappeared from with slack jaw and wide eyes for still, quiet minutes.

“What did just happen,” he asked to the air, stare unmoving from the front door, and only turned to look at the gifts in his hands when Kenma hummed and answered, sounds of his game starting up again in the sudden silence of the shop:

“You just agreed to a date with your crush.”

Kuroo couldn't even bring himself to deny the definition his best friend had given of Bokuto – what would the point have been, really? After all, he _had_ just agreed to a date, hadn't he?

He was going on a date. With _Bokuto_.

The elated smile opening on his mouth at that thought was so wide and sincere it made denying his feelings a downright laughable option – instead he hummed and opened the paper bag he had just closed, picking up the cat key-chain and fastening it to one of the belt-loops on his pants to make sure he wouldn't lose it, and then opened the card to read whatever Bokuto had written in it.

He had a sharp, messy handwriting, was the first thing Kuroo noticed, every letter scrawled nearly with haste, and the more he read the more the smile widened on his lips, making it impossible, by the end, to keep the amused snort from escaping him.

 

_It's the romantic type of felines, like, we're talking Thomas O'Malley type of cats, with the serenades and all of that, singing is a thing I can do for you if you want me to, I can even pick cats over owls for you which is HUGE and that's because I have all the romantic cats for you._

_Or, most of them._

_But maybe if you say yes we can go out once or maybe ten times and I'll have all of them for you, in the end, and maybe some romantic owls too._

_I could have a whole romantic zoo for you, I think._

_That'd be cool._

_BK_

 

“I may be about to fall in love,” he said, laughter in his tone as he re-read the card again and again, barely registering Kenma's answering low hum as he shook his head and rolled his eyes both at himself and at his date.

_Date_.

He liked the sound of it. He like it _a lot_.

He _loved_ it.

“Actually, maybe I already have.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> What Kuroo couldn't remember, never would even in the future - and Bokuto _really_ would never get tired of whining about it - was the first time Bokuto had seen him and, as an immediate consequence, promptly fallen for him.
> 
> It'd been nine weeks before their official introduction, when Konoha had asked him to go with him to the gift store to buy a present for his girlfriend of the time: they'd been about to pay, talking about everything and nothing, when Bokuto had let out one of his usual jokes, the ones that his friends had learnt to ignore.
> 
> The shop employee, though, and Bokuto would never forget that moment for the rest of his life, had actually _snorted_ and then _laughed_ , and the way he had tried to hide his stretched lips and shaking shoulders was so beautiful to him that, even days after the accident, he was still thinking about how that cashier had waved a hand and excused himself with voice still filled with mirth.
> 
> It had felt bright and warm, and Bokuto had decided, right then and there, that he would have done _anything_ to earn the privilege of seeing that smile every day of his life.


End file.
